CATHOLIC TRADITION.
CENTURY X. YEAR 959.INDEX OF THE AUTHORS AND WORKS CONTAINED IN THIS ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEENTH VOLUME
CONSTANTINE EMPEROR PORPHYROGENITUS.
On the Themes of the East and West, from the edition of Anselm Banduri, a Benedictine Monk. (Prefixed is the dissertation of the most learned man, Fried. Tafel, professor at the University of Tübingen, published in the year 1847, which brings no small light to the book On the Themes.) Hierocles the Grammarian's Synecdemus. Book on Administering the Empire, from the edition of Ans. Banduri. Life of Basil the Macedonian (merely mentioned: it exists in volume CIX of the Patrologia, col. 226.) Liturgical Prayers (See among the Works of Leo the Philosopher, volume CVII, col. 299.) Narrative on the translation of the image of Edessa to Constantinople, from the edition of Andrea Gallandi. Abridged Digest of Laws. Novellæ Constitutiones (New Constitutions). Excerpts on Embassies, from Dexippus the Athenian, Eunapius of Sardis, Peter the Patrician and Master, Priscus the Sophist, Marcus of Philadelphia, Menander the Protector, and Theophylact Simocatta, collected by the order of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. Constantine's Prologue, on how one ought to admit envoys or send envoys. Argument of the first book of Constantine Porphyrogenitus on virtues and vices, from the Collectanea published by Henr. Valesius.
ST. NICON IN CRETE.
Acts of St. Nicon, written by the abbot of the monastery of St. Nicon in the year 1150.
THEODOSIUS THE DEACON.
On the capture of Crete, in five books of poetry, addressed to Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, from the edition of Nic. Maria Fogginus, published in the new Appendix to Byzantine History at Rome, 1777.
ADDENDA
Golden Bull of Emperor Romanus the Younger for the monastery of Xeropotamou on Mount Athos, with our interpretation. Wesseling's Commentary on the Synecdemus of Hierocles.
Paris. — From the Presses of J.-P. MIGNE.
CONSTANTINE IMP. PORPHYROGENITUS CONCERNING THE THEMES OF THE EAST AND WEST AND CONCERNING THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE EMPIRE. THERE IS ADDED HIEROCLES THE GRAMMARIAN'S SYNECDEMUS.
BONAVENTURA VULCANIUS' DEDICATION OF THE FIRST BOOK CONCERNING THE THEMES.
TO THE MOST NOBLE AND MOST DISTINGUISHED MEN, JANUS DOUSA OF NOORDWIJK, PAUL BUSIUS, ABRAHAM AB ALMONDA, CURATORS OF THE LEYDEN ACADEMY, GREETINGS.
A monstrous storm of war has truly shaken, tossed, and mangled our Belgium for twenty whole years now, most noble and distinguished men; nor has any lucky star shone as yet to give us the hope of finally seeing the land; for we desire an end to such great labors, though we are too wretched even to hope for it. But of all the evils which this truly savage war has dragged with it in swarms, and at the memory of which the mind justly shudders, I am accustomed to consider the dissipation of libraries as almost the most grave; in the splendor and multitude of which Belgium yielded to no province of the whole world before these tumults. For what else is to be expected from the destruction of libraries than barbarism and ignorance, and from ignorance confusion of all things, and from confusion a A *navtheopia* [shipwreck of all things]? You act, therefore, wisely and consistently with your duty, curators, who, while war still rages and public tumults are rampant, spend whatever leisure the helm of the republic—at which you constantly and bravely keep watch—leaves you, on promoting the academy and restoring the public library; and you seek out at your own great expense the records mangled from the shipwrecks of previous years, and cast to the very corners of the earth, and once collected, you publish them. I speak of the book of ancient inscriptions throughout all Europe, which you have arranged to be edited for public use at your own expense. A work truly exceptional, if any ever came from the typographic presses; whose fame, long before its edition, pervaded the whole world and held it in suspense with an incredible expectation, inasmuch as now at length, having cast off its old age, it is to recover its pristine glory for the benefit of youth through your kindness: for which name, indeed, it will owe you immortal thanks as long as it shall stand. And that I may say nothing for the present of the utility which is to come from this work to all students of ancient and recondite learning—which is truly the greatest—you will excite, nay, inflame others with this illustrious torch which you have lit before them, so that whatever mangled records from this common shipwreck of Belgian libraries may have come to them, they may with equal alacrity bring them forth for public use. In whose number I gladly profess my name. For as soon as I learned of your plan concerning the edition of this work, I could not contain myself from seizing, for the sake of testifying to my private joy and zeal for the literary cause, Constantine Porphyrogenitus *Concerning the Themes*, an author never before edited, B and making him public property. There were, indeed, three reasons by which I was moved to judge him most worthy to be brought forth into the illustrious light of this most learned age, under the auspices of your most ample name, at the same time when the delights of the world—that is, your inscriptions—were reborn. First, because he is an emperor, the son of that Leo; second, because he earned the best reputation for literary studies, inasmuch as he revived and rescued from destruction the good arts and sciences that were at his time almost extinct and half-buried; third, because he was treated with almost the same fortune as your inscriptions, having been captured, having experienced the fury of the military, and having been ransomed. For first, it lay hidden for many years in the squalor and dust of a library, or rather a *bibliothēkē*, at Mechelen, with a certain English doctor, Thomas Clement, treated with little clemency; afterwards in C